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About the Programme

Manchester Smarter City uses new technologies and ways of working to understand and optimise city systems to change how the city functions to improve how people live, work, play, move, learn and organise.

New Technologies

New technologies might include sensors, LED lighting, smart ticketing, or low carbon technology such as electric vehicles or solar panels.

New Ways of Working

New ways of working includes ensuring the integration of different systems through common standards, using "big data" to help manage the city in "real-time", encouraging new applications and services to provide real-time information for residents and workers, and better use of information to help policy makers.

Key Themes

Manchester Smarter City focuses on 6 key themes to achieve better outcomes for the city and its citizens, and profiles those projects and places that are contributing to the Smart City.

The themes form a framework which outlines a set of ambitions and outcomes for our strategy work. Each project will have a bias towards one or two of these, yet each should touch on each one in some way.

Live

How and where we live; our houses, communities, neighbourhoods and districts; inter-generational living; quality of life and place; retrofit, regeneration and expansion.

Work

How work changes, what jobs we do, how we do them and where we do them; what new skills we have; what new industries and start-ups; social innovators and entrepreneurs.

Play

Access to amenities, a better environment and richer cultural life; how we keep fit; a healthy built environment; a child-friendly city; activity throughout life; sport; our rich cultural life; Manchester for tourists.

Move

Getting around in a seamless, low-carbon and healthy way; a connected city, a walkable city, a city of bikes; trams, trains and buses; international connectivity; transit futures.

Learn

How we continue learning throughout our various life stages; the university; schools, colleges and apprenticeships; libraries and community learning; the self-learning city.

Organise

How our neighbourhoods shape their future; citizen engagement in policy; an open city government, Metropolitan Mayor and new decision-making; 21st century public services.